My wife, Eliza Carter, seven months pregnant, kneeling on the cold marble floor.
She was crying with a muted, breathy silence that was infinitely more terrifying than a scream—because it meant she had been meticulously trained that making noise would invite punishment.
The roses slipped from my numb fingers.
They hit the floor with a soft, devastating thud.
Eliza flinched violently.
That single tremor shattered something inside me.
It wasn’t the sight of Margaret Wells, the highly recommended maternity nurse, lounging in my leather chair with a porcelain bowl of fruit.
It wasn’t my mother, sitting rigidly with icy detachment.
It wasn’t even my younger sister, Chloe Carter, frozen in the hallway.
It was my wife’s flinch.
The realization that when she heard the door open… she expected me to be angry.
I crossed the room in seconds.
“Eliza,” I choked, dropping to my knees. “Hey. Look at me.”
